GOOSE DAY LIVEBLOG

Today The Boy and I are celebrating our own Christmas before we go to spend the real day in California with my family. We set out cookies and milk last night (which were not eaten, because it's Fake Christmas, and Santa was not about to travel all the way out here a few days early just to enable our delusions), and this morning we opened presents and ate bacon and got ready to cook our Christmas goose.

Goose isn't really all that different from any other bird you might want to roast, but I was being vegetarian at the age when most young people really learn to cook, so I'm still a little new to the whole process and full of questions. Like, what if you have  a cut on your hand and some of the fowl germs get into your bloodstream? Will I get bird flu? Why do they cut the neck off but leave the neck skin flapping about? I know a lot of people name their birds before they roast them, but is there any contingency - maybe a subgroup of PETA - that really frowns on that? And is it really so bad to dress up an animal after it's already dead? Or is that even worse than when it's alive?

Please advise.

Love, Carrie.

PS - I really am a little worried about the goose germs getting inside me. If this turns into an epidemic of Goose AIDS - GAIDS - I'm gonna be pissed that nobody warned me about it.

Thanks, Julia Child.

2:16 - Just got back from the store, where I completely lost my head when I couldn't find any pre-mixed nuts. Instead, I bought four bags of different kinds of nuts and will mix them myself. I WILL HAVE MY NUTS MIXED BEFORE I CRACK THEM.

But seriously, we can only eat so many nuts before our nutcracker gives out and we have to break them open with large rocks, like heathens. If you know anyone in need of some mixed nuts, please leave their address in the comments, and I will leave some in their shoes on Christmas Eve. Dutch-style.

3:30 - Goose is being stuffed with citrus and onions. I'm startled and alarmed by how relaxing it is, being elbow deep inside a wet, wrinkled carcass.

That's all I plan to say on that.

3:40 - Pricking goose skin so fat can escape as it cooks. Boy, while stabbing: THUS ALWAYS FOR POULTRY.

It tried to escape. But it could not.
Also, I'm a little worried that we're actually roasting a tiny, old dinosaur man.

4:15 - The Boy just stuck his whole head into the oven to check on the goose. Then I pushed him in, pleased that now I don't have to worry about a second course anymore. What a clever hostess am I.

4:35 - Hour one of goose cookery has passed. I'm planning to start a company that sells mixed nuts - or, if you prefer, assorted sorted nuts. Some people don't like their nuts mixed, and that's okay by me. Auntie Carrie just wants you to be happy.

4:41 - Idea for a Mixed Nut Party, where everyone brings one nut to add to the mix. Party really slows down once it becomes clear that everyone brought Brazil nuts.

5:13 - There has been something of a sauce debacle. Pepper-cherry-wine-balsamic vinegar sauce may sound fancy and Christmas-y in theory, but when somebody doesn't like it at first taste and feelings are hurt, you may start to wonder whether having goose sauce is even worth it. But soldier on. Even if you don't use the sauce for dinner, there's something pleasantly cheery about popping rich, peppery cherries into your mouth while you check on the bird. And we are ALL ABOUT THE CHEER.

5:51 - The rest of dinner is not as exciting. Sauteed mushrooms, roasted asparagus, and potatoes. BUT WAIT. The potatoes are going to be fried in goose fat, which looks like this as it's being rendered:

Yum!

It's gettin' pretty Fight Club up in here, but once the potatoes are fried we'll sprinkle them with sea salt, so that should fancy them up again.

I saw a book yesterday that tests your hipster cred. I'm not sure, but I think rendering your own goose fat to make potato chips would rate fairly high on there. "Oh these?" we'll say to our guests as they marvel over our culinary triumph, "They're cooked in goose fat from our own goose. You've probably never had them before. Duck fat fries are so mainstream."

6:14 - The Boy wonders if we need "a sprig of something to decorate the goose." HE HAS SUCCUMBED TO THE CHEER.

7:52 - To sum up, our dinner:

11:06 - The goose has been et and the dishes washed. After dinner, we all played a rousing game of Snapdragon, an old Victorian parlor game where you put raisins and brandy in a bowl and then light the brandy on fire and try to snatch the raisins out of the flaming liquid.

AND A MERRY NIGHT WAS HAD BY ALL.



Images via Sarah Says Read, The Full Wiki.